Photograph by: Sean Kilpatrick
, Ottawa Citizen

They were sitting on one of Montreal’s famous outdoor patios one lazy summer afternoon, two friends enjoying a beer and looking toward the future.

It was the early 2000s — Jean Chretien was prime minister — and as they sipped their drinks, a young Justin Trudeau laid out for Terry DiMonte how he thought the federal political landscape was going to play out.

A newly resurgent Conservative party would come to power, predicted Trudeau. The Liberals, riven by infighting, would churn through a leader or two before seeking new blood.

During this period, Trudeau — already known by Canadians, particularly after the eulogy to his father, Pierre, in 2000 — would enter politics as a backbencher, learning the ins and outs of Parliament. Eventually he would run for the Liberal leadership.

DiMonte, a rock radio deejay who had known Trudeau since the latter was in high school, was wary. “How are you going to avoid the pitfalls of office?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” said Trudeau.

“When you get to that level, you’ve got a hairstylist and poll numbers, people telling you which way to look at the camera and which eyebrow to raise,” DiMonte said. “The thing that people are attracted to and that people relate to, the team sweeps in and they take it away. How are you going to avoid that?”

Trudeau looked at his friend squarely. “Gerry,” he replied, “won’t let that happen.”

***

Most Canadians have never heard of Gerald Butts. Most wouldn’t recognize him if they saw him. Bearded, bespectacled, sometimes even a little scruffy, he melts away from the spotlight. Yet the 42-year-old Cape Bretoner has been on the other end of the phone or at the back of the room for all of the big moments in Justin Trudeau’s political life.

Many leaders have close confidants they met before politics, whose advice and political instincts count more than anyone else’s. Stephen Harper had John Weissenberger. Chretien had Jean Pelletier. Brian Mulroney had Bernard Roy. And almost from the moment they met more than 20 years ago, two university students from very different backgrounds, Gerald Butts has played a central role in Justin Trudeau’s political career.

Some think he is the puppet-master pulling the strings of a young politician “in over his head.” Others dismiss this suggestion outright. But it’s clear Butts plays a key role in the Liberal leader’s plans.

Butts was there when Justin Trudeau wrote his famous eulogy to Pierre. They were in each other’s wedding parties. Butts’s fingerprints are evident on a range of Trudeau policies, from Senate reform and marijuana legalization to the Northern Gateway pipeline.

If the Liberals were to win the 2015 election , Gerald Butts could become one of the most powerful people in Canada. So who is he?

Justin Trudeau and Gerald Butts were both born in 1971. But while Trudeau was instantly famous as the first son of a colourful and controversial prime minister, Butts grew up the youngest of five children to a coal miner and a nurse in Glace Bay, a town of about 20,000 on Cape Breton island.

It was a tough environment. When Butts was just seven, an explosion at one of the mines killed 12 workers; five of his classmates lost their fathers. His own father might have been among them if he hadn’t retired three years earlier.

“(Gerald) knew, given a different set of circumstances, that could have been him,” says retired high school English teacher Kenneth Gillis, who remains close to his former student. “I think he grew up with a real sense of social justice.” The mines also left a permanent blight on the landscape, which Butts would credit years later for his active interest in the environment.

He was fortunate, however, to also have a litany of role models. His parents pushed the importance of hard work, education and discipline. His older siblings went to university, pursuing successful careers in law, child psychology, chemical engineering and medicine.

And his Aunt Peggy, a Catholic nun, earned several degrees, taught political science at Cape Breton University, served on provincial task forces, and was even named to the Senate in 1999.

Peggy Butts impressed upon her youngest nephew the idea not merely of wanting to be something, but of wanting to do something with his life. He took that advice to heart, earning a scholarship to study at Montreal’s McGill University.

A mutual friend, Jonathan Ablett, introduced Trudeau, then 19, and Butts, 20, early in their studies at McGill. Not much is publicly known about the initial meeting: all three declined interviews.

But shortly after their meeting, Butts invited Trudeau to join the McGill Debating Union, where Butts was a rising star. In fact, by the time he graduated in 1995, Butts had won the national debating championships two years in a row, served as president of the Canadian university debating association, and sat on the McGill club’s board for several years.

“He loves the debate,” recalls Pablo Navarro, who served on the McGill debating team executive with Butts. “I mean, he really loves the debate. He loves to engage in it for the sake of it, let alone for something that actually matters. He likes competition.”

He was also politically aware. Julie Dzerowicz, currently seeking the Liberal nomination in the Toronto riding of Davenport, signed Butts up as a federal Liberal while she was selling memberships in support of Chretien during the party’s 1990 leadership contest. Both were first-year students.

“Whether it was on tuition fees or whether there were things happening in Quebec politics or more nationally,” says Dzerowicz, “I remember him always being engaged and always in conversation about the key issues of the day.”

In an interview with the Huffington Post last year, Butts said Justin Trudeau didn’t want to talk politics when they were in university together. He described his early relationship with Trudeau as typical of young male university students: discussions centred on girls, sports, books and, in their case, debating. They did discuss Trudeau one day becoming prime minister, but “we talked about it like I’d like to be goaltender for the Montreal Canadiens,” Butts recalled.

Still, Trudeau was already an outspoken defender of Confederation: videos and photos show him speaking out against Quebec sovereignty in 1990. He escorted his father, Pierre, when the latter delivered a high-profile speech opposing the Meech Lake Accord at a Chinese restaurant in Montreal in October, 1992, an event Butts attended too.

The early bond between the two students was obvious.

“I would venture they both had a sort of deep feeling or instinct or drive to make an impact, to have a significant impact on the world,” says Navarro. “I think they recognized that in each other, and they respected that in each other.”

Some initially wondered whether Butts was simply trying to capitalize on the fame of Pierre Trudeau’s eldest son.

“As a friend from a long time ago, we were always concerned about those people who were befriending (Trudeau) for ulterior motives or just because it was Justin and it was kind of cool to say you met Justin,” says Mathieu Walker, who first met Trudeau when they were grade eight students at Montreal’s private College Jean-de-Brebeuf in the mid-1980s. Now a cardiologist, Walker remains part of a tight-knit group to whom Trudeau turns when he needs an escape from political life. Walker admits he was, at first, skeptical of Butts’s entry on the scene.

Yet 20 years later, he says he has no doubt the friendship between Butts and Trudeau is deep and sincere. “But it’s evolved into more than a friendship,” Walker says. “It is now a mission.

“Justin trusted Gerry to be real and someone he could count on, and he was right about that. And now Gerry is there and providing him with support.”

Trudeau and Butts went in different directions after McGill. While everyone had expected Trudeau, with his rock-star glamour and high-profile family name, to immediately jump into politics, he instead left for Vancouver to teach.

Butts went the political route, joining Ontario Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty’s office as policy director in 1999 after brief stints on Parliament Hill with Liberal senator Allan MacEachen, and at Queens’ Park with Ontario Liberal MPP George Smitherman.

McGuinty, like Trudeau, was a young leader from a political family contending with an entrenched Conservative government and facing questions about his depth, ability and judgment. Butts largely wrote the platform McGuinty successfully campaigned on during the 2003 Ontario election.

It contained more than 100 promises, including pledges to cancel proposed tax cuts and increase social spending. It was also heavy on environmental protection: McGuinty promised incentives for renewable energy, and to phase out Ontario’s coal-fired power plants.

Butts – the onetime debating champion — also made several public appearances during the 2003 campaign, touting the Liberal platform. The Progressive Conservatives replied with a scathing press release that asked: “Who the heck is Gerald Butts?

“Evidently, Mr. Butts is the real leader of the Liberal Party of Ontario. Why else would they put this anonymous, un-elected, backroom spin doctor out front to talk about Liberal policy, day after day?”

But Butts didn’t overstep his role, says McGuinty’s chief of staff at the time, Phil Dewan. “As much as he developed a great reputation from (working with McGuinty), and could certainly use that as a stepping stone, he absolutely did whatever Dalton needed in order to get where he was going.

“It wasn’t just all about Gerald’s career. It was very much about serving in that role,” Dewan says.

McGuinty’s early premiership wasn’t without problems, and Butts wears them, to some degree. For example, the Ontario Liberal leader promised during the 2003 election that he wouldn’t raise or lower taxes. Butts repeated this, telling reporters early in the campaign: “Under a McGuinty Liberal government, Ontarians will pay the same amount of taxes as they do today. Your taxes are not going up and they’re not going down.”

Months later, McGuinty introduced a health tax of up to $900 per person. The Liberals blamed the Ernie Eves government for lying about the size of the deficit, which the Progressive Conservatives denied.

A decade later, federally, Trudeau has also pledged not to raise or lower taxes.

McGuinty’s record on transparency and accountability were also criticized, and Butts wore some of that, too. “Ministers have long been accustomed to clearing the timing and substance of their announcements with ‘the Centre,’” Globe and Mail columnist Murray Campbell wrote in January 2008, as McGuinty was starting his second term as premier.

“They are now finding that their staff has to be hired through Mr. McGuinty’s office and that they are the Premier’s employees, not theirs. Mr. McGuinty’s principal secretary, Gerald Butts, has been placed in charge of the government’s communications effort.”

To some degree, centralization is also a hallmark of Camp Trudeau today, from the approval of candidates in upcoming byelections to the ouster of all senators from the Liberal caucus this past January, a startling move that came from Trudeau’s office without warning for most in the party. Butts played a key role in these events.

There are other similarities between McGuinty’s 2003 Ontario election and the strategy adopted by Trudeau, right down to the talking points.

For example, “I am rejecting the politics of cynicism, rejecting the politics of division,” McGuinty told the Toronto Star during the 2003 campaign. “There is a longing in Ontario for something that is better and I am speaking to that.”

Ten years later, “Canadians are tired of Mr. Harper and the negative, cynical approach to politics,” Trudeau told Liberals in Montreal in February. “Canadians are tired of the politics of fear and division. But they don’t just want a different government, they want a better government.”

Butts was recruited to head the World Wildlife Fund Canada In August 2008, after nine years at Queen’s Park (he left the Liberal government prior to the beginning of the current Ontario gas plants scandal).

In his new role, Butts was critical of the federal Conservative government’s environmental record, particularly on the Kyoto Protocol and rapid expansion of the oil sands.

“We don’t think there should be a carbon-based energy industry by the middle of this century,” Butts said in May 2012 when asked about the proposed route for the Northern Gateway pipeline. “The real alternative is not an alternative route. It’s an alternative economy.”

But he was far from a radical. One word that continually pops up from people who know and have worked with Butts is pragmatism. He established good working relationships with the federal government, as well as with such multinational companies as Coca-Cola and Loblaw, to advance the environmental agenda.

“Particularly in an NGO, it’s difficult because you have a lot of emotional people who are there for emotional reasons,” says former WWF Canada board member Tanny Wells. “He was extraordinary at aligning things. Sitting there and listening and saying: ‘This is how we get from here to there.’ ”

That ability has carried over to Trudeau’s office. Emmett MacFarlane is an expert on constitutional law at the University of Waterloo who has criticized and even joked about Trudeau and the Liberals. That didn’t stop Butts from seeking his advice as Trudeau was looking for ways to shake up the Senate.

“He’s not trying to bring in just friendly voices, he’s not trying to keep it to a partisan thing,” MacFarlane said. “That’s something that kind of earns my respect. And that’s part of the reason I felt more comfortable being involved.”

Justin’s rising star

While Trudeau had gone off to teach, after McGill, he and Butts remained close. One of the most revealing stories of their friendship stems from September, 2000.

Former prime minister Pierre Trudeau was days from death, and Justin had escaped to friend Terry DiMonte’s house in Montreal to hide from the news media and write his now-famous eulogy.

The eulogy was composed around DiMonte’s kitchen table. Trudeau had a working version, but wanted feedback from his trusted friends, including DiMonte and Butts.

“When everybody spoke and offered an opinion, he turned to Gerry,” DiMonte recalls of Trudeau. “Gerry didn’t tell him what to do, and Gerry wasn’t overbearing. But Gerry was brutally honest with him at every turn.

“It was the first time I’d seen Gerry close up in a very private sort of setting, where I realized that whatever happens, whatever path Justin travels on, this was his guy.”

After the eulogy – which became Justin Trudeau’s re-introduction to Canadians who had seen snapshots of him with his father when he was a child at 24 Sussex Drive – his political star started rising. Butts was there throughout.

They both sat on the board of the Katimavik youth volunteer program, and were in each other’s wedding parties. In 2003, they retraced Pierre Trudeau’s famous canoe trip along the South Nahanni River in the Northwest Territories, with reporters in tow.

Butts told the Huffington Post that a month after Pierre Trudeau’s funeral in September 2000, the two friends talked about Trudeau running for office.

A few years later, they went for dinner at a Toronto Indian restaurant where Trudeau interrogated his friend on his experiences at Queen’s Park, including whether political life was “full of cynical bullshit” and what impact it had on one’s private life.

“It may not have been absolutely decided that Justin wanted to run at that point, but most people expected it,” says Dewan, McGuinty’s former chief of staff. “And certainly if he did, Gerald would be playing a very key role.”

Days after Trudeau announced on Oct. 2, 2012 that he was running for the federal Liberal leadership, Butts quit his $250,000-a-year job as head of the WWF Canada to be at his side. He has been there since, commuting back and forth between Parliament Hill and home in Toronto, where his wife and two young children still live.

Butts and Trudeau are the same age, both tall, standing well over six feet tall. They believe in many of the same things, including the need to defend the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the need for strong federal leadership on issues such as infrastructure, the economy, environmental protection, health care and post-secondary education.

But while Trudeau has a knack for the cameras, and is perfectly at ease shaking hands and meeting strangers, Butts now stays out of the limelight. He is not unfriendly. He often rubs shoulders with journalists and has a wide network of contacts.

“But I think he feels the most serious work gets done behind the scenes,” says Gillis, Butts’s former teacher. “If he was out there, he’d have to bother too much with the rubber-chicken circus.”

“Gerry could never do what Justin does. Gerry’s way more brusque than Justin is,” DiMonte adds.

Butts’s strength is strategy and the big picture, something some of Trudeau’s closest friends say the Liberal leader needs help with.

“Justin has a lot of ideas and sometimes can go in many directions and sometimes need to be focused,” says Walker. “And I think that Gerry’s someone who can do that, to help Justin focus on an issue and not be distracted by other issues.”

Last summer, during a public event in Kelowna, B.C., Trudeau surprised many — including members of his own party — by unequivocably announcing his support for legalizing marijuana. The move was not planned; it was Butts who largely turned Trudeau’s comments about pot into a full-fledged policy that differentiated the party from others, forcing them to react.

“The five or six issues that Justin is leading, Gerry would have been the thinker on those,” says one Liberal MP.

Butts hasn’t always been able to save Trudeau from his own spontaneity. The Liberal leader’s perplexing comments about admiring China’s government, delivered to a women’s event; his joke on a French talk show about Russia invading Ukraine because its Olympic hockey team hadn’t won at the Olympics – these were rhetorical bumbles that even Butts couldn’t paper over.

But he does play the bad cop to Trudeau’s nice-guy persona. He can be sharply critical of journalists if he doesn’t like what they have written, often uses Twitter to take shots at political opponents, and led the discussions that ultimately purged 32 senators from the Liberal caucus.

“He’s not in the priesthood, he’s in politics. And politics is a blood sport,” says former Ontario Progressive Conservative adviser Leslie Noble. “So as nice a guy as any of us are, you don’t bring poetry to a knife fight, and sometimes you’ve got to bring a knife. He’s no different, and he’s pretty good with a knife.”

Trudeau’s close circle includes Queen’s Park veteran Katie Telford, who managed Trudeau’s leadership campaign and is now in charge of preparing the Liberal party for next year’s federal election. The circle includes Liberal party national director Jeremy Broadhurst and Trudeau’s chief of staff, Cyrus Reporter.

Unlike them, Butts doesn’t have a defined role. His fingers are on both parliamentary and party business. He is copied on emails about party policy, question period, nomination battles and fundraising, and isn’t afraid to intervene at a moment’s notice. That includes sometimes bypassing others in the leader’s office.

“Gerald is kind of the guy pulling on all the ropes,” says one Liberal insider. “He’s got an influence on everything.”

Still, close observers don’t think of him as a puppet-master.

Remembering the death of the elder Trudeau, and the advice Butts provided on the eulogy, DiMonte emphasizes that it was a supporting role, not a starring one. “Believe you me, Justin wrote that eulogy. Every word of it,” he says.

“And I’m sure that’s the way he runs his office. I’m sure Gerry has a lot to talk about and a lot to tell him, and I’m sure there’s some pretty spirited discussions. But at the end of the day, Justin will make the final decision.”

“Justin is still very opinionated, and has a very good political instinct, and I don’t think he would go in the end for something that feels wrong to him,” agrees Kate Monfette, who worked on Trudeau’s leadership campaign.

Of course, she adds: “I’m not sure Gerry would suggest something that felt wrong to Justin.”

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